The wedding cake fell, Rod Smith replaced it, the marriage lasted
SALEM TWP. ‒ Randy and Debra McCune were married on May 29, 1982, a day she remembers as unusually hot and humid, with the temperature close to 90 degrees.
The church, First Baptist in Newcomerstown, was not air-conditioned. But the fellowship hall where the coffee-and-cake reception would be held was usually cooler than the sanctuary.
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Debra had ordered a three-tier wedding cake, with two full sheet cakes sitting on each side of it, from Rod's Donut Shop in Uhrichsville. Two hours before the early afternoon ceremony, she did a quick check on the cake. It would be the main offering for some 150 guests.
"To my horror, the tier cake was leaning," Debra told The Times-Reporter in an email message. "I called my husband-to-be to see if his sister could help me fix it, and as I was talking to him the tier cake fell and landed in one of the sheet cakes.
"I remember I just started crying."
Debra called her mother Shirley Ricklic, who called the bakery's owner, Rod Smith, who went to the social hall.
"He just apologized all over himself," Debra said, recalling the man who died March 24 at age 69. He said the weather contributed to the cake's slide.
"He was very reassuring, that he would have a replacement cake by the end of the wedding service and he did at no extra charge," Debra wrote. "As we came into the reception, he was putting on the finishing decoration. We probably had the freshest cake ever served at a wedding."
The new cake had three layers, with a sheet cake on the side. The first one was kept in the kitchen for family.
"We did salvage that. We had plenty of cake," Debra said.
She recognized the incident in a story about Smith's death in The Times-Reporter. Smith's wife, Linda, and daughter Carissa Cleveland had recounted the cake's structural failure in discussing his career.
The McCunes have been married 42 years. They live outside Port Washington in Salem Township.
Randy, who was 20 years old when they married, drives a truck for R J Wright & Sons of Newcomerstown. Debra, who was 21 when they married, is a water billing supervisor for the city of Coshocton.
Their family has grown to include son Quintin McCune, daughter Staci Ott, son-in-law Jeremy Ott and grandchildren Jade, 14, and Alliannah, 11.
Reach Nancy at 330-364-8402 or nancy.molnar@timesreporter.com.
On Twitter: @nmolnarTR
This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Woman remembers the late Rod Smith replacing collapsed wedding cake
